Sierra Leone hosts ASRH meeting
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone, with support from MLI, hosted a two-day participatory and interactive meeting on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (ASRH). On September 15th and 16th, multiple stakeholders met in order to discuss the needs of adolescents and to prepare an implementation plan to ensure that adolescent sexual and reproduction health services including preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) are easily accessible and friendly for young people. One main goal for the implementation plan is to harmonize and better coordinate ASRH interventions in Sierra Leone for greater impact.
The ASRH meeting is important to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation as 48% of Sierra Leone’s population is below 18 years of age and a recent report indicates that 25% of females aged 15-19 years first have sex before the age of 15 and that 27% of girls are married before the age of 15. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation has made tackling these problems a key priority.